Saturday, October 14, 2006

Wrong-Headed "Christian" ( and others) Religio-Activities

This is an excerpt from my post : "Email to Alternative News...."

It concerns the range of religio –activities, “prophesy-fulfillment activities”, being done by the US Government other Western Governments and a cohort of private groups, that involve the usage of ultra-high tech neuron manipulation/reading technologies, foreign policy, Middle East policy, intelligence services operations,… the gambit…, and the underlying motivations for these activities , that must stop.

As a starting motivation, a seemingly “ good-cause” benign motivation, give you this article on President Bush

President Bush said yesterday that he senses a "Third Awakening" of religious devotion in the United States that has coincided with the nation's struggle with international terrorists, a war that he depicted as "a confrontation between good and evil." Bush told a group of conservative journalists that…."A lot of people in America see this as a confrontation between good and evil, including me," Bush said. "There was a stark change between the culture of the '50s and the '60s -- boom -- and I think there's change happening here," he added. "It seems to me that there's a Third Awakening."The First Great Awakening refers to a wave of Christian fervor in the American colonies from about 1730 to 1760, while the Second Great Awakening is generally believed to have occurred from 1800 to 1830.

I seriously doubt that Bush had ever heard of the first two "Great Awakenings" until a briefer handed him his talking points before the meeting, but still the implications of this story are disturbing. Because it confirms, yet again, the bizarre and dangerous notion that is clearly central to his understanding of 9/11. Bush believes that it was God's will, God's way to bestir His people and wake them up from the complacency that had let sin and secularism run loose in the land. That's the undeniable implication of his remarks to those assembled "conservative journalists," – and that's exactly how those True Believers will interpret those words. And why not? It's been obvious from the beginning that Bush believes the wholesale slaughter of almost 3,000 Americans and other nationals on September 11 was an act of God – what's more, an act of God performed specifically for him, so that he could exploit the tragedy to re-make the world according to the long-held militarist plan of his handlers. Even while the Twin Towers were still smoldering with the toxic fumes that Bush's EPA deliberately downplayed (sending an untold number of rescuers and restoration workers to their deaths or to lifetimes of disease and suffering), Bush was barking out his cynical and callous view of the attack: "Through my tears, I see opportunity." Bush has repeated this line -- almost certainly scripted for him by his speechwriters, probably the ever-sanctimonious Michael Gerson (now a new columnist for the Washington Post) – like a mantra for years. It was, from the earliest post-attack days, his central understanding of what had happened. Over and over, like a clanging bell – or the hypnotic ticking of a metronome – he made the connection: "9/11–Opportunity, 9/11–Opportunity, 9/11–Opportunity." An opportunity for what? This too was made clear: war. Endless war. Again, early on, Bush let drop a remark whose profound importance went almost unnoticed, although it clearly signaled everything that was to come afterward – and is still yet to come: "There's no telling how many wars it will take to secure freedom in the homeland." This statement was made at a fundraising speech on Aug. 5, 2002. And now we know why Bush and his cronies need an uncountable number of wars ("no telling how many"): because war is the basis of their "unitary executive theory," which holds that the President cannot be restricted by Congress, the courts or any law whatsoever in his function as Commander-in-Chief in wartime. This radical, perverted doctrine is the rotted heart of the entire Bushist enterprise. And, as we've noted here before (drawing on the indefatigable labors of Glenn Greenwald), the U.S. Senate is now poised to accept this doctrine as the new basis of the American state. This week, as Greenwald reports, they have moved even closer to this dread and draconian step. But all of this is God's will, Bush believes. Gerson, that cross-gartered Malvolio, tells the story of how he unctuously told Bush that God had wanted him in the White House at such a crucial moment in the life of the nation. Bush, Gerson tells us, nodded sagely and said: "He wants us all here, Gerson." The sycophantic speechwriter tells this story as an example of Bush's great generosity of spirit: he had even included his lowly scribe in the divine mission God had given him! Bush's divine appointment is a theme continually sounded by his underlings. Who can forget the stirring declaration of General Jerry Boykin, who after 9/11 toured churches around the country calling for "Christian warriors" to rise up against the Satanic god of Islam? Sidney Blumenthal recounted Boykin's tale last year in the Guardian:

At that moment [October 2003, when stories about Boykin first broke], he was at the heart of a secret operation to "Gitmoize" the Abu Ghraib prison. He had flown to Guantánamo, where he met Major General Geoffrey Miller, in charge of Camp X-Ray. Boykin ordered Miller to fly to Iran and extend X-Ray methods to the prison system there, on Rumsfeld's orders. Just before Boykin was put in charge of the hunt for Osama bin Laden and then inserted into Iraqi prison reform, he was a circuit rider for the religious right. He allied himself with a small group called the Faith Force Multiplier that advocates applying military principles to evangelism. Its manifesto - Warrior Message - summons "warriors in this spiritual war for souls of this nation and the world ... " There can be little doubt that he envisages the global war on terror as a crusade. With the Geneva conventions apparently suspended, international law is supplanted by biblical law. Boykin is in God's chain of command. President Bush, he told an Oregon congregation last June, is "a man who prays in the Oval Office". And the president, too, is on a divine mission. "George Bush was not elected by a majority of the voters in the US," [Boykin said.] "He was appointed by God."

And as Barry Lando noted on Salon.com:....NBC News , and the following day the L.A. Times, reported certain ear-catching declarations by Army Lt. General William G. "Jerry" Boykin. Dressed in his full-dress Army uniform, Boykin told an Oregon religious group in June: "Satan wants to destroy this nation, he wants to destroy us as a nation, and he wants to destroy us as a Christian army." In another speech, according to L.A. Times military analyst William Arkin , Boykin showed slides of Osama bin Laden, Saddam Hussein and North Korea's Kim Jong Il, and asked, "Why do they hate us? The answer is because we're a Christian nation. We are hated because we are a nation of believers." Our "spiritual enemy," he went on, "will only be defeated if we come against them in the name of Jesus."

Boykin is now Deputy Undersecretary of Defense for Intelligence: one of the leading players in the "War on Terror." Proclaim your belief in Bush's divine mission, and you too can be elevated to the inner circle of God's world-shaking warriors. The evidence for Bush's sense of divine appointment is extensive, but let's conclude with one last story, the infamous meeting with Sharon and Abbas in June 2003. As I noted in a Moscow Times column that month:The Israeli newspaper Haaretz was given detailed minutes of a negotiating session between Palestinian Prime Minister Mahmoud Abbas and faction leaders from Hamas and other militant groups. Abbas, who was trying to persuade the groups to call a ceasefire in their uprising against Israeli forces, described for them his recent summit with Ariel Sharon and George W. Bush. During the tense talks at the summit, Bush sought to underscore the kind of authority he could bring to efforts at achieving peace in the Middle East. While thundering that there could be "no deals with terror groups," Bush sought to assure the rattled Palestinians that he also had the ability to wring concessions from Sharon. And what was the source of this wonder-working power? It was not, as you might think, the ungodly size of the U.S. military or the gargantuan amount of money and arms America pours into Israel year after year. No, Bush said he derived his moral heft from the Almighty Himself. What's more, the Lord had proven his devotion to the Crawford Crusader by crowning his military efforts with success. In fact, he told Abbas, God was holding the door open for Middle East peace right now – but they would have to move fast, because soon the Creator and Sustainer of the Universe would have to give His attention to something far more important: the election of His little sunbeam, Georgie, in 2004. Here are Bush's words, as quoted by Abbas in Haaretz: "God told me to strike at al Qaeda and I struck them, and then He instructed me to strike at Saddam, which I did, and now I am determined to solve the problem in the Middle East. If you help me, I will act, and if not, theelections will come and I will have to focus on them."

So the fact that the Oval Office dullard would not know what the "Great Awakening" was if Jonathan Edwards came up and slapped him across the face with a Bible does not diminish the a larming nature of Bush's Messianic pretensions. Neither does the fact that he uses these pretensions cynically and shamelessly to motivate a religious "base" that has been deliberately cultivated by the corporate elite to serve its own decidedly secular lusts for money and power. It is entirely possible to be a knowing hypocrite and a fanatic ideologue at the same time; indeed, it is often a prime requirement for national leadership. (See, for example, the history of the Soviet Union for innumerable instances of this trait.) And it is entirely possible for a fatuous, overgrown frat boy to plunge the nation and the world into a literal hell of death and ruin by viewing reality through the lens of his self-inflated ignorance – and shaping his reactions and policies accordingly. ***

They use the technology, run schemes, Jesus would not approve of, for the above religio-political objectives. Jesus set no such example, of deceit, manipulations dishonorableness, skullduggery, disrespect for other, much less Mengele-type activities in His Ministry to achieve His objectives. Neither did any of the Apostles. Yet these people shamelessly do these activities with the technology.

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They smack more of Fascist than anything else. The positive wholesome example was already set for them.

In His demonstrated Ministry Jesus did nothing without the volitional consent of those involved. Jesus’ activities were consistent with Human Rights

Jesus’ activities harmonizes beautifully with that universal highpoint in our global civilization, the International Convention on Civil and Political Rights [Human Rights], crafted by so many Christians and others.

That Convention represents an agreed standard of civilized behaviours we expect of each other and especially so of governments. The example was already set for them.

Jesus, knowing raw human nature so intimately, knew from way back when, that many claiming to be in this name, would be abusers just as any other group. So he gave parables and stories designed to help prevent exactly that. The story of the Good Samaritan… Jesus’ encounter with the Roman solder at the time of His arrest. If you have the heart of a good Samaritan, you just are not going to abuse innocent human beings!! You have a heart that can apply fair, ethical, moral justice to virtually any situation.

As to the Muslims and others, there is surah 2, 256 reads: "There is no compulsion in religion". The principle is clear, no matter the technology.

And the Jews are quick to point out that “Do unto others …” was also a saying of one of their Rabbi.,

No one has an excuse for this.

Let me be very clear, my point is what politicians etc. are doing.

The thrust of my point is that since Bush 41, politicians and their band of Conspirators have been using religion surrounding Jesus for these own self-serving and self-fulfilling agendas, and even those who are sincere or think that they are sincere, are not filled with that "Christ-Mind" or "Christ Heart" , that deep understanding and internal assimilation of what Christ was teaching, that would automatically prevent them from doing the atrocious dishonorable things they are presently doing.

That's my point. And virtually identical with these supporters are what Pat Buchanan calls the Armageddonites.

My point about the “inner assimilation of what Christ was teaching” is shared by others . I give you:

The Jerusalem Declaration on Christian Zionism begins by citing one of the best known New Testament beatitudes, "blessed are the peacemakers" - and then goes ballistic. It denounces brash Christian evangelists, who give comfort to Israeli warriors, for spreading a "false doctrine that condemns the world to the doom of Armageddon and corrupts the Biblical message of love, justice and reconciliation."…………………………………

And then to underline how ethically, and morally unfit is this Administration and the intertwining groups that form the “they”, read on:

Exclusive: Book says Bush just using Christians‘Tempting Faith’ author David Kuo worked for Bush from 2001 to 2003

By Jonathan Larsen"Countdown" producerMSNBC

More than five years after President Bush created the Office of Faith-Based Initiatives, the former second-in-command of that office is going public with an insider’s tell-all account that portrays an office used almost exclusively to win political points with both evangelical Christians and traditionally Democratic minorities.

The office’s primary mission, providing financial support to charities that serve the poor, never got the presidential support it needed to succeed, according to the book.Entitled “Tempting Faith,” the book is not scheduled for release until Oct. 16, but MSNBC’s “Countdown with Keith Olbermann” has obtained a copy.“Tempting Faith’s” author is David Kuo, who served as special assistant to the president from 2001 to 2003. A self-described conservative Christian, Kuo’s previous experience includes work for prominent conservatives including former Education Secretary and federal drug czar Bill Bennett and former Attorney General John Ashcroft.Kuo, who has complained publicly in the past about the funding shortfalls, goes several steps further in his new book.

He says some of the nation’s most prominent evangelical leaders were known in the office of presidential political strategist Karl Rove as “the nuts.”

“National Christian leaders received hugs and smiles in person and then were dismissed behind their backs and described as ‘ridiculous,’ ‘out of control,’ and just plain ‘goofy,’” Kuo writes.More seriously, Kuo alleges that then-White House political affairs director Ken Mehlman knowingly participated in a scheme to use the office, and taxpayer funds, to mount ostensibly “nonpartisan” events that were, in reality, designed with the intent of mobilizing religious voters in 20 targeted races.

Nineteen out of the 20 targeted races were won by Republicans, Kuo reports. The outreach was so extensive and so powerful in motivating not just conservative evangelicals, but also traditionally Democratic minorities, that Kuo attributes Bush’s 2004 Ohio victory “at least partially … to the conferences we had launched two years before.”

With the exception of one reporter from the Washington Post, Kuo says the media were oblivious to the political nature and impact of his office’s events, in part because so much of the debate centered on issues of separation of church and state.

In fact, the Bush administration often promoted the faith-based agenda by claiming that existing government regulations were too restrictive on religious organizations seeking to serve the public.

Substantiating that claim proved difficult, Kuo says. “Finding these examples became a huge priority.… If President Bush was making the world a better place for faith-based groups, we had to show it was really a bad place to begin with. But, in fact, it wasn’t that bad at all.”In fact, when Bush asks Kuo how much money was being spent on “compassion” social programs, Kuo claims he discovered the amount was $20 million a year less than during the Clinton Administration.

The money that was appropriated and disbursed, however, often served a political agenda, Kuo claims, with organizations friendly to the administration often winning grants.More pointedly, Kuo quotes an unnamed member of the review panel charged with rating grant applications as saying she stopped looking at applications from “those non-Christian groups,” as did many of her colleagues.

“Tempting Faith” contains several other controversial claims about Kuo’s office, the Bush White House and even the 1994 Republican revolution in Congress.Calls and e-mails to the White House have not been returned. ………………………

Let me add clear clarity:IF they , the Administrations and their cohorts, are simulating, stimulating, engineering these real events in the Middle East and elsewhere, to serve the agendas of the “Secret Societies, groups, affiliations whatever, then this is obviously most wrong.

If they are in earnest and doing so for “evangelizing Third Awakening Purposes” then this too is wrong. The correct “internalization” should have prevented them from doing such snake-oil., Ends-justify-the-means tactics and activities.

We are approaching the point where it doesn’t matter if they are in earnest or not. Having started on that slope, the human dynamics and passions will quickly take things out of their control, or out of whatever control they thought they had, as events in Lebanon, Iraq, and the Iranian Khomeini Regime British Petroleum engineered to install, or the Hamas Israel’s Begin helped to created, as these events have proven.

The way out of this mess? It is going to be complicated. It is going to involve de-nuclearizing Iran and the region, a quick just peace with the Palestinians, getting the region back under the International Convention of Human Rights as an agreed standard for civilized people; getting back to the focus of human social and economic development, with spiritual growth and expression, taking place within the context of that Convention, as was the global tendency, since the devastations of WW11.

It is going to involved getting decision-making persons, who genuinely understand, respect and are humanly connected to others ; people who can in good faith have no difficulty acting in the best interest others as fellow human being, to clean up the mess these other shortsighted binary, whatever.. have created.

About Me

I reside on the other side of 300Ghz. You will have to tunnel through the 1776 Pennsylvania Avenue of Dreams and now nightmares, to get a glimpse of me as a mirage in a Kafkian-Dali landscape. Can you figure the name Etisoppa? It isn't Greek, but is related to that Athenian Jeffersonian Democracy that both once flourished . Will both have equal success against a direct Babylonian threat?